A 13 year-old actor from Tyneside who is put through the wringer in his first big film. He plays Jakob, a Jewish boy in early-1940s Poland, who watches German soldiers murder his parents and drag away his sister. The film, Fugitive Pieces, is an adaptation of Anne Michaels's Orange prize-winning novel.

That's pretty heavy material to dump on a kid.

It doesn't stop there. Jakob escapes into a forest where he hides by burying himself up to the neck in soil. He is dug up, barely alive, by an archaeologist who smuggles him to Greece and then to Canada. Which means Kay speaks lines in Yiddish, Greek and English.

Another dewy-eyed stage brat?

Actually, he isn't professionally trained, although he has appeared in a couple of films, including a small part in The Illusionist with Edward Norton, which was later cut.

A good lesson for a young actor to learn.

Quite. But he can rest easy: critics have picked out Kay for his discomforting and involving performance. He barely speaks at the start, just watches with wide, unbelieving eyes, and never mimics the anguish.

What next?

Pinocchio, with Bob Hoskins, for TV. Just don't call his acting wooden.